Pinudjem II

High-priest of Amun 985-969 BC.

    Pinudjem II, a High-priest of Amun at Karnak, was the grandson of *Pinudjem I and the son of Menkheperre who were both members of that dynastic line of High-priests who, in the Twenty-first Dynasty, ruled the south of Egypt from Thebes. His son *Psusennes II was also a High-priest and he assumed the kingship of the whole country when the pharaoh at Tanis finally died.

    One of Pinudjem II's most enduring achievements was the rescue and reburial of nine kings and some of the queens and princes whose original tombs had suffered desecration. *Pinudjem I had given the order for this to be undertaken, but it was Pinudjem II who, in Year 5 of the reign of the Tanite king Siamun, organised the removal of the mummies and any of their surviving funerary goods and their reburial in the tomb of his wife, *Neskhons. In Year 10 of the same reign, the mummies of Ramesses I, *Sethos I and *Ramesses II were added to the group in this tomb which lay to the south of Deir el Bahri. The tomb also contained *Neskhons' own burial and the mummies of Pinudjem II and Masahert—the only Theban High priests to be discovered here—when the cache was revealed in 1881. All these bodies and their associated funerary goods were ultimately taken to the Cairo Museum.

BIBL. Kitchen, K.A. 3rd Int.; Maspero, G. Les Momies royales de Deir el Bahari. Cairo: 1889; Reeves C.N. Valley of The Kings. London: 1990. Smith, G.E. The Royal Mummies. Cairo: 1912.

Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt by Rosalie and Antony E. David